


Crossing Paths

by anstoirm



Series: under new leadership [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 11:31:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anstoirm/pseuds/anstoirm
Summary: A conundrum: is revenge still justice if your foe has changed faces? Is it still vengeance if your foe no longer holds to the same lack of morals they once had?Emily Kaldwin can’t forget what the Whalers did, but maybe she can forgive them.





	Crossing Paths

Karnaca was unbearably hot.

Even in the summer months Dunwall rarely approached temperatures that were uncomfortably warm, and after being in Serkonos for only a few weeks after her flight from her home Emily has come to the conclusion that she both misses home and has no idea how anyone can stand living here.

But it also makes her realize that she’s sorely neglected her people, and she also determines that after she’s retaken her throne, she’s going to make it a point to visit and help these people in any way she can manage.

Were conditions in Tyvia and Morley as horrifically degraded? Had the seat of power in the Isles lost sight of the other nations while recovering from the plague and the assassination of her mother?

No wonder Corvo had gotten so frustrated with her distaste and dismissal of her duties. No wonder her _subjects_ had.

She’ll fix things. Delilah’s coup had thrown her reality into stark contrast, and Emily _will_ fix things—starting with Delilah, and then with the rest of the Empire.

But it was hard to keep herself so motivated when she had so few people she could trust right now, when her father was trapped in _stone_ back home, and when it was so void-damned _hot_. Even ducking into the shaded confines of an apartment overlooking the main street nearest the docks.

This apartment was empty earlier.

Emily knows this because she passed through this very same apartment three and a half hours ago in order to avoid a guard patrol. 

She knows this because the bodies that had given her pause three and a half hours ago—no signs of fever, no bloodfly infestation, just a thin, clean line across their throats—were now gone. In their place were two children and a handful of figures that cause Emily’s spine to go rigid and sends her mind back fifteen years ago.

Twenty-five years old, and suddenly she feels as though she’s the scared ten-year-old she had once been.

Hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and Emily slowly backs herself into the darkest, shadowy corner she can find.

“—I can’t believe you reached out to her.” One of the figures says, garbed in the uniforms she clearly remembers though it’s been nearly twenty years since she’s seen them, face obscured as they all were by the masks worn by factory workers in the oil refineries.

The Whalers. The supernatural assassins many people still refused to believe existed, still refused to speak of as though it would summon one and spell your end. Emily knew better, because fifteen years ago she had watched these men _kill her mother_.

Another figure speaks, this one standing with his back to her. Same uniform, but she can see the bare skin of his neck and his hair. No mask. “We don’t have a lot of options right now. She was one of them.”

“If it weren’t for her—”

The maskless speaker lifts a hand and the figure that had been arguing goes silent. Gooseflesh ripples over Emily’s skin and for the first time in the past handful of days it has nothing to do with the now-familiar sights, sounds, and experiences of Karnaca.

She holds herself as still as she possibly can, gaze intense.

 _Is this real, right now?_ She thinks to herself. _Am I really looking at my mother’s killers_? It was hot, and the sun was scorching outside, and she was wearing all black and heavier clothes, and she was under tremendous strain right now. Could she be imagining things?

Her eyes focus on the back of the maskless figure’s head with furious intensity.

 _Is that_ him?

The figure turns, and for half a second Emily believes it _is_ him. The Knife of Dunwall, Daud, killer of an empress and Emily’s mother. But no, logic or some other dark whisper at the back of her mind tells her, no, there are too few lines on his face compared to the blurry image she remembers from fifteen years ago.

The most striking difference, impossible for her to miss, are the harshly glaring edges of the heretic’s brand burned into the lines of his face.

If the Abbey had ever gotten their hands on the Knife of Dunwall, they wouldn’t have bothered with the brand—they would have simply executed him.

He’s not young, but he’s far too young to be the Isles’ most notorious assassin; early forties, at least. His face is too lean, features too sharp and attractive, and his body is leaner than the solidly built figure she still remembers hauling her off of her feet and dragging her away from her dying mother. His hair is a few shades too dark, long and smoothed back on top and shorn short on the sides, a far cry from the receding hairline in the image in her mind.

His eyes, almost unnaturally blue even in the dim light of the apartment, settle on the same corner she’s hiding in, and Emily holds her breath and goes as still as death.

“Hobson. What is it?” Another whaler than the first asks.

She watches the unmasked one step to the side and turn around fully, her eyes flicking over to the two children—a pair of nervous-looking girls—standing behind the group of whalers. A familiar burn begins in her veins, anger filling her from head to toe; what did she walk into? Are they stealing more children away from their mothers for a handful of gold and coins?

The whalers had vanished early after Corvo had ended the violent coup that killed Jessamine Kaldwin. There’d been recent sightings most had dismissed as overactive imaginations, but there were those that were still afraid of the enigmatic and elusive figures.

They were tantamount to myth in the Isles.

Gifted by the Outsider or not, they were just monsters masquerading as men, and Emily wishes they had remained the subject of tall tales _._

She makes a decision and steps out of her hiding place, taking a small sort of victory in the way the whalers’ stances stiffen upon seeing her. Barring the masked one who remains unaffected, they knew who they were staring at.

They knew what they’d done.

The whalers and usurped empress stare each other down.

After a moment one of them mutters, “well, _shit_.” Another of them snorts in response.

“Lady Empress.” Their leader she assumes, the one they called Hobson, says. His expression is carefully blank, but there are undertones to it that she can’t identify. Intrigue, maybe? Certainly not the wary fear she had hoped for. “You’ve been making deals since leaving Dunwall.

The masked group behind him all look at him sharply at the statement, glance at each other, and then turn a focused gaze on her.

She resists the urge to glance down at her covered hand where an eldritch being’s mark hides, barely resists the urge to twitch her fingers in response. She’ll give these killers nothing. “Are you stealing more kids away from their families? How much coin is it for this time?”

There’s enough bite to her words to make the whalers shift on their feet uncomfortably.

How many of the men standing in front of her now were part of that assault on the gazebo all those years ago, she wonders.

None of them respond to her question.

The grip on her blade tightens. “Did you kill their mothers, too?”

Corvo taught her well, and she’s already glancing among them, plotting out what she’d have to do to get through all of them to the girls on the other side. Which of her new, damnable powers could she use?

Emily Kaldwin has a kind heart, but she wants to _hurt_ them.

“How long have you been in Karnaca?” Hobson asks, an she’s not sure if the use of the title Delilah had stolen from her is meant to irritate, but her skin crawls anyway.

“Long enough.” She answers.

“So, not long at all.” His lips twitch minutely, making her believe that he had already known the second her boots hit the pavement down at the docks. “Did you know there’s a trafficking ring here in Karnaca?”

All of the whalers are still standing stiffly between her and the two girls, and Emily’s fingers clench and unclench around the hilt of her blade. They’re watching her intently, ready to retaliate should she go on the offensive.

They must _really_ need that coin.

Her brow furrows at his question. What does it have to do with anything? What was he trying to make a point about?

“One that extends farther north, to smaller cities and towns. Places where people go missing, young boys and girls, and no one in authority cares because they’re small and penniless. The sort of ring that brings children to _brothels_ in the bigger cities all across the Isles.” Hobon continues, and she must be imagining the raw anger in his voice.

Her expression twitches, hopefully blocked by her mask; she won’t let whatever distraction he’s attempting to drag her away from the very real, very old anger she feels at the men who murdered her mother and stole her away from her life all those years ago.

“We were offered every coin to a pair of mothers’ names three weeks ago to find their missing daughters and bring them home.” He glances at the two girls, who are both watching the exchange with the sort of subdued terror that she recognizes far too easily.

But what person in their right mind would ever ask _assassins_ for _help_ with something like seeking out missing people?

Why would they _agree_ to it?

He must be lying.

His gaze returns to her and she tries to pretend her stance is sill as steady and certain as it had been. “We declined the payment.”

A heavy, thick silence falls over the apartment, one that neither he nor his fellows seem willing to break. They were waiting for _her_ to respond.

“Are you trying to make me forget what you did? All those years ago?” She demands, the authority in her voice lessened by her uncertainty. Corvo had taught her to never ignore a possibility unless she had absolute proof it wasn’t true or possible.

The only assassinations she’d heard of since those whispers of the whalers’ reappearance in the Isles were accompanied by revealed scandals, threats to the safety of others and—in one case—threat to _herself_.

Other whispers were from people that _swore_ these near-supernatural figures had saved their lives or helped them in some way.

She didn’t believe it.

His answer to her question, immediate and solemn, makes her _want_ to believe it. “No.”

“Are you trying to make up for it?”

“Lady Emily,” Hobson says, a humorless smile finding its way onto his face, “you and I both know there’s no making up for what we did.”

They stare each other down again. She wants to be the angry child, wants to get the retribution she damn well _deserves_ against these monsters—but were they wholly monsters when they were returning stolen children to their mothers?

Should she trust that he was telling the truth?

He was being utterly sincere, completely open with it when she got the impression this was a man that didn’t do that freely or easily. None of this makes her hate them any less, but it curbs her anger and she finds herself relaxing her stance.

A quiet _pthwip_ breaks the silence of the room and another whaler appears; the newcomer starts upon seeing her, stares for a moment, and then without commenting turns his attention to Hobson. “The north road out is clear for the time being. We need to move before the next rotation.”

“The wall of light is down?”

“Yes.”

Hobson nods, but when none of the whalers make to move his expression pinches into light irritation and he turns to them. “I’ll catch up. Go.”

She watches, grip on her blade slackening, as two of the whalers turn to the girls and speak quiet words to them, then hold out their hands and wait. The girls willingly take them, and then those whalers disappear, followed by all but one of them as well as their leader.

The one that remains glances at Emily again. “Careful, Hobson.” He says, and then he, too, vanishes.

Another nod, this time an acknowledgement of the warning. Hobson exhales and runs a hand over his face. She can see the weight of leadership all but melt from his shoulders. It’s a familiar feeling, one she tried to shake every night after her duties by escaping to the rooftops of Dunwall Tower.

“What is this?” She asks, trying desperately to hold onto her anger.

“An attempt to be better. We’ve got blood on our hands, all of us. Nothing can change that, and our former _leader_ ,” the word is accompanied by a curl of his lip and is spat with venom, “saw to that the second he agreed to that contract with Hiram Burrows.”

They almost brought an empire to its knees with a single murder and kidnapping. The blood of Dunwall was on their hands as assuredly as the blood of her mother had been on Daud’s.

And he knew it.

“Then what?”

“Sleight of hand and under the table is all we know. Daud is gone, one way or another. We don’t know how to operate differently, but we’re not just assassins anymore, and I _will not_ be the selfish leader he was.” Hobson answers.

She stares at him.

He continues, expression weary. “We come from every corner of the Isles. This place is as much our home as anyone else’s, and we want to help it recover. Maybe make some good come of the black-eyed bastard’s gifts just as the Royal Protector had.”

Just as the Royal Protector had. Just as her _father_ had. What would her father have to say to finding out that the infamous Whalers were trying to follow in his footsteps?

Emily glances down at her hand, then, and she feels her anger fully deflate.

Shaking her head she moves to an open window prepared to move on. She still has a mission to do, a father to save, and she lets the words he spoke echo in her head.

Something to think on later.

“The brothel on the south end was a frequent haunt of the Duke.” She pauses at his voice, hand on the windowsill, and turns back as he continues. “Not sure if you’ve got what you need already, but I’ll keep someone posted near that building for a few more days, if you want more intel.”

The offering throws her off balance, and she blinks. The only thing she can think to ask is: “I’m not the empress anymore. Why do you keep using my title?”

“It may not mean much, but we tried to stop the bitch that stole your throne once before.” He answers, glancing away and folding his arms over his chest. His expression becomes cold and angry. “We failed, apparently.”

She lets the information sink in and is surprised when it only leaves her with curiosity. “So that’s twice you’ve been the ruin of Dunwall’s royalty.” She says.

“You’re not ruined yet, Lady Emily.” He replies easily, the weight of his conviction hitting her in the chest.

A moment passes and his eyes slip to her hand—the one with the Outsider’s mark hidden beneath a band of fabric. “We’ll do our part to finish what we started. If you want our help taking back Dunwall, there’s a dead drop we monitor on the roof across from the City Watch headquarters.”

One of her eyebrows lifts. “Bold of you.”

A small, amused smile appears on his face. “A... _friend_ of mine maintains it. She’ll pass on the word if you send for us.”

He stands straight after that, giving her a salute of admirable form with one fist pressed over his heart and heels together as he bows to her. What was he, before he became an assassin? Surely no one lowborn, if the assured crispness of that bow was anything to go by.

Then, with a quiet _pthwip_ , Hobson vanishes.

She stares at the space he had vacated for a few moments longer, filing away what she had learned and what he had told her so she could think on it once back on the _Dreadful Wale_. Once she had some time to herself.

The offer to help her retake the throne had been sincere, and they had previous dealings with Delilah and her witches—it would be helpful to call upon them for more than one reason.

But once upon a time they killed her mother.

She shakes her head and moves on.


End file.
